“Halloween is approaching! SWL’s first Halloween event begins Wednesday, the 18th. You can expect a couple seasonal missions and a public raid encounter in Agartha. You’ll also get extra login rewards just for playing during the event. For those of you wondering about seasonal cosmetic items we’ve had from past years in TSW, a bunch of them should be available as potential rewards and purchases this year in SWL.”

Funcom’s also noted it’s closely monitoring healers and tanks in solo modes along with weapon perfomance (especially Elementalism); Museum teleports are on the way as well, in addition to fixes for keybinding, inaccessible Tokyo Legends, hotbar issues, and Tokyo lair mobs.

Massively OP’s MJ makes no secret that her favorite day is Friday the 13th. And as luck would have it, she gets to play her favorite game on that special day! What adventures are in store? It’s time for the big Blue Mountain showdown to finish off this leg of the main story, and then MJ’s Templar takes her first trip to the dreaming prison. What will she decide once inside? Tune in live at 9:00 p.m. to find out. And if you are lucky today, MJ will have a surprise for you!

One thing I did not ask, however, was why he didn’t include World of Warcraft as a game he would recommend, even though some of our readers wondered it aloud. I would think that the reason for that would be pretty obvious, given that it was a list of Justin’s recommendations. But because I do love being contrary, there’s a good list of reasons why no one, ever, should recommend World of Warcraft as a game to be tried. Under any circumstances. Let’s even make it a nice round dozen reasons… but then subtract two, for no good reason.

The release of the Orochi Tower in Secret World Legends is a big deal for several reasons. For one thing, it wraps up the storyline in Tokyo, resolving all of those dangling plot threads for those who have never explored it before. But for another thing, it also marks the moment when The Secret World and Secret World Legends are both at the same point, content-wise; the relaunched game is no longer lagging behind in content. Now it’s all in there, and the future is an undiscovered country.

Of course, there’s new bits of lore in the Orochi Tower, so even if the past is a well-worn country to you, there’s still good reason to go through the tower and see what it has to offer. Plus, you know, there are all of the gameplay rewards inherent in going through the tower, that doesn’t hurt matters. So get into the tower and put some closure on this moment of The Secret World’s story, why don’t you?

The Orochi Tower is where the story of Tokyo ends in Secret World Legends, a familiar fact to anyone who has played through this story before. But there will be some changes compared to the original version of this content, so even if you think you know the story you want to pay attention. You can check out a recap run-through of the gameplay in the video just below, or you can also catch up with a summary of information from the most recent development livestream.

Or you can check out the latest official dispatch, which also talks about future balance changes for the game, notably including the removal of AoE damage penalties from weaponry. Assault Rifles in particular suffered from a lack of single-target options that brought down their damage in several situations, so the changes are meant to make the weapons more viable in a fight. The game continues to steam along nicely, so it should be for the benefit of everyone that viability and overall balance is still being examined closely.

Massively OP’s MJ was all ready to leave Blue Mountain in Secret World Legends, but two missions eluded her. Then she realized that the Sasquatch leader probably won’t talk to her because she hadn’t gotten further in the main story mission. So today is all about following the rest of the story in this zone, wrapping things up, and finally moving on. Tune in live at 6:00 p.m. as MJ works to befriend the Sasquatch and blow Blue Mountain.

If you have ever visited the MMORPG subreddit, you probably know that one of the most frequent posts that pop up are ones asking the community for recommendations. These are players who have left a full-time game and are now fishing around for a substitute, or those who have “played them all” and are hoping that some undiscovered gem exists, or are having a difficult time finding a good game match for their preferred playstyle.

I am often leery about tossing out blanket recommendations because it’s far better to get to know a player, his or her game history, and the type of game sought before giving my opinion. But if you were to put a fish cannon to my head and threatened me with rapid-codding, I think I would be generally OK promoting the following 10 MMORPGs to most players, sight unseen.

These are MMOs that have earned my personal recommendation and are the titles that I tend to promote the most. Here we go!

Funcom posted up a new Secret World Legends infodump over the weekend, and if you were expecting it in a new post as we were, you were likely fooled, as instead it’s nested under the post of the week before. They tried to hide it from us, they did, but our tipsters are crafty. Crafty, I say!

Anyway! The gist is that Funcom is planning Tokyo: Orochi Tower for next week (a small delay), followed by the “never-before-released lair region of Kaidan” in the next update. Halloween (Samhain) is also due “shortly after” the Orochi Tower patch goes live, and yes it’ll be similar to Whispering Tide. And involve cats. I don’t know.

Some combat tweaks are also on the way. “We are reviewing all passive abilities and removing the penalty from damage-dealing potential by virtue of being an AoE attack,” Funcom says. “The reasoning behind this is for consistency across all weapon passives and to allow for more build options in non-AoE fights. Generally speaking, we’ll see an increase in damage dealt by all weapon types, particularly Assault Rifles. Since ARs don’t have a single-target option for grenades, we’re removing the AoE ‘penalty’ from Grenade active abilities as well. This should allow Assault Rifles to be a more competitive damage dealing weapon across all encounter types.”

I think I speak for a majority of Secret World veterans when I say that we need 100% more Hayden Montag in this MMO. The odd headmaster of Innsmouth Academy is endearing with his ill-fitting clothes, complete lack of social tact, and his macabre backstory. He could totally hold up a spin-off of his own.

Sometimes MMO writers (and the characters’ voice actors, if there are any) can strike gold with a particular NPC. These characters become more than placeholder names and faces to us; they make a connection with players and are fleshed out to a greater depth. And when that happens, you naturally want more.

So which NPC would you like to see more of in your MMO? Who needs to come back for more missions and stories?

On this week’s show, Tina joins the crew to talk about the momentous launch of Guild Wars 2:Path of Fire! There’s plenty more for the crew to discuss, too, with a pair of EverQuest expansion announcements, a launch of an underdog MMOARPG, and more!

It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.

Hey, remember the MMO Book Club? That’s the Reddit-and-Discord group that allows members to vote on a game to play, then organizes a guild and events inside that game over the allotted time period, ensuring that folks who want to try out an MMORPG have a ready-made community of likeminded casual people who aren’t going to immediately scamper off to greener pastures. You scamperers, you.

“The shortlist of games you can vote on to play with the Bookclub now are: Guild Wars 2, Secret World Legends, DC Universe Online, EverQuest, RuneScape, ArcheAge, World of Warcraft and TERA.” (Voting for TERA extends the current cycle another month instead of moving the crew to a new game.)

The same day, Funcom (purely coincidentally, we have no doubt) posted its 720-day loyalty reward information. The good news for loyal subbers is that the two-year mark will net you five royal treasure chests and a free character boost to level 80.

The Orochi Tower is loosely scheduled to arrive in SWL in early October, although veteran players might find a few new surprises when it does. “The tower’s gameplay flow is going to be different from the classic tower,” the devs said. “You’ll need to do more floors in a more linear fashion, and you can expect to see a couple small gameplay changes and references to things that weren’t in TSW.” Rumor has it that there is even a new floor in the works.